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Since deregulation in the mid‐1980s the banking industry in Australia has become increasingly competitive. Australia already has one of the least controlled banking systems in the world, and the implementation of the recommendations of the Financial Systems Inquiry (the Wallis Report) should contribute to a further increase in competition in the banking sector, with more non‐bank financial institutions and speciality companies entering the market. Increased competition, weakening interest rates, squeezed profit margins and the surge of mortgage originators into a traditional banking market have all prompted a search for new and innovative methods of improving internal efficiency, leading to the development of new banking products and the exploration of alternate delivery methods, or channels. Improvements in technology are facilitating this development and this paper examines the implications both for customers and for bank profitability.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the various proposals to regulate executive pay in the UK. Situated within a corporate governance context, it focuses on using shareholder empowerment as a mechanism to formulate a regulatory strategy to quell the continued furore that surrounds the issue.

Using an expansive array of different academic materials, the paper adopts the approach of using critical analysis to provide an original insight into the popular and contentious issue of executive remuneration.

The paper finds that the UK Government’s current proposal to regulate executive remuneration, via the shareholder empowerment device of a binding vote on remuneration, will primarily consist of symbolic rather than practical significance.

The paper provides important social implications, as it provides a new prospective and insight into the well-covered issue of executive remuneration.

The paper draws on a host of traditional and modern academic materials to create a new viewpoint on the issue of remuneration. Moreover, the paper is original insofar that it ties the issue of shareholder empowerment into the conceptual design and formulation of company law and corporate law theory.

This paper aims to explore the cessation of injecting amongst male drug users when in prison in England and uncovers what influenced this behaviour and why.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 male drug users on release from prison to explore what happened to their injecting drug use in prison. The research was conducted from a pragmatic harm reduction approach using grounded theory.

Not injecting in prison was identified as a pertinent finding and nine overarching themes accounted for this decline. The themes often overlapped with one another, highlighting how the decision not to inject when last in prison was multi‐factorial. Running throughout the themes were participants' concerns regarding the health and social risks attributed to injecting in prison, alongside an appreciation of some of the rehabilitative measures and opportunities offered to injecting drug users when in prison.

This qualitative research offers an updated perspective on illicit drug injecting in prison in England from the view of drug users since health and prison policy changes in prescribing and practice. It contributes to evidence suggesting that prisons can be used as a time of reprieve and recovery from injecting drug use.

THE influence of wireless on libraries is marked. As a method of publicity it is unmatched. On April 20th the new secretary of the Library Association, Mr. Guy Keeling, joined the number of library broadcasters with a talk from 2 LO on “What Your Public Library can do for You.” The announcer said he regarded the talk as a fresh mark of the co‐operation between the B.B.C. and the public libraries which had been so fruitful in the past; and Mr. Keeling made his first real public appearance as Secretary with a clearly Stated account of our ordinary activities, enlivened with humour, and delivered in excellent manner. Together with all those who have any vision in the matter, he looks forward to co‐operation between all libraries.

Bibliographical materials are often produced on a low budget and against a deadline, and the design of the material often does not adequately represent the structure of the information or facilitate its use. Two studies concerned with optimizing the effectiveness of design given certain practical constraints are reported here. In the first study, ten coding systems suitable for distinguishing between entries in typewritten bibliographies were tested. Subjects were given sections of author index typed in different styles, together with lists of authors' surnames to be found in the test material within a set time. The most effective system made a clear distinction between entries, and between the first element of each entry and the rest of the entry, by indentation. In the second study, the effectiveness of six spatial and three typographic coding systems for distinguishing between entries and between elements within entries in typeset bibliographies was tested for two different search tasks. In Experiment I, subjects were given lists of authors' surnames to find in the test material; in Experiment 2 they were given lists of titles. Spatial coding was more effective than typographic coding in Experiment 1; the reverse was true for Experiment 2. The most effective spatial coding systems in both experiments were those which clearly distinguished the start of each entry by line spacing or indentation. The use of capitals for authors' surnames was the most effective typographic coding system in Experiment 1; the use of bold for titles was the most effective in Experiment 2. The best compromise for both search tasks is likely to incorporate line spacing between entries with elements within entries running on, and bold titles.

High-performance work system (HPWS) has been verified as a promoter of both organizational and individual outcomes. However, this research takes the conflicting view of HPWS to examine the impact of HPWS perception on knowledge hoarding. In addition, competitive climate is proposed to mediate the relationship while HPWS psychological contract breach is hypothesized to moderate the HPWS-knowledge hoarding linkage.

A quantitative research design is adopted with data collected from 367 MBA and PhD students in Vietnam. Partial least square structural equation modeling is used to test the hypotheses.

The perception of HPWS increase knowledge hoarding with competitive climate acting as a partial mediator. HPWS psychological contract breach intensifies the relationship.

The research provides additional evidences to support the dark-side view of HPWS on employees' outcomes. The adoption and implementation of HPWS should be clearly announced to reduce perceptions of mismatch between expectation and reality.

This study is among the first to investigate the association between HPWS and knowledge hoarding. In addition, the mediating role of competitive climate represents a novelty in HPWS research. Finally, the concept of HPWS psychological contract breach has been introduced to the literature.

This paper aims to investigate the combined effect of two interventions, perspective taking and incentives, on auditors’ professional skepticism (hereafter skepticism) when auditing complex estimates. Specifically, this paper examines the different ways that perspective taking (management versus inspector) and incentives (absent versus reward versus penalty) combine to impact skepticism.

This paper uses an experiment with 177 experienced Big 4 auditors. The experiment used a 2 (management vs inspector perspective) × 3 (absent vs reward vs penalty incentives) between-subjects design.

In the absence of incentives, adopting a management perspective raises situational skepticism when measuring skepticism as appropriateness of management’s fair value estimate while adopting an inspector perspective raises situational skepticism when measuring skepticism as need for more evidence. The authors find some evidence that incentives complement perspective-taking by enhancing those aspects of skepticism for which perspective-taking performs poorly. When assessing management assumptions, auditors adopting an inspector perspective enhance their skepticism more substantially than those adopting a management perspective, and this enhancement is greater with rewards than with penalties. However, this study does not detect an interaction between incentive type and perspective-taking on auditor skepticism in relation to gathering additional evidence.

This paper extends the literature by shifting the focus from a single perspective to a comparison of two perspective-taking approaches and discusses how each of these approaches enhances different aspects of skepticism. This paper also illustrates the importance of the interplay between perspective-taking and incentives in enhancing auditor skepticism.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a scale to measure social religiosity (SR) and assess its measurement invariance across different cultures.

The research relied on samples from China (n=486), India (n=377), Japan (n=362), Korea (n=386), and the USA (n=580). The invariance process involved carrying out a series of confirmatory factor analyses with progressively more restrictive constraints.

Results show the SR scale to be reliable and valid across culturally and religiously diverse countries. Implications of the findings are also discussed.

Based on Katz (1988) this is a new scale to measure SR and its measurement invariance is assessed across culturally divergent countries.

This paper aims to understand whether the perceptions of the patient’s in the health-care service experience differs in the Ayurveda, and to examine the impact of three critical communication dyads on the patient service experiences in Ayurveda health-care sector.

The study consists of 436 participants, recruited directly from the inpatients of Ayurveda establishments/hospitals/clinics in Northern Kerala, India. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. An independent sample t-test was used to find out the differences in the perceptions of Ayurveda health-care consumers towards their health-care service experience. Multiple regression analysis is used to explain the dyadic relationship of patient–firm (PFR), patient–employee (PER) and employee–firm relation (EFR) on the health-care service experience (SE) in the Ayurveda sector.

The study highlights that the perception of patients on Ayurveda health-care service experience varies according to their socio-economic statuses such as age, gender, annual income and the number of inpatient days. Among the service communication dyads, PFR is the most effective dyadic phase that contributes significantly more towards an improved Ayurveda health-care SE, followed by the PER and EFR.

The findings of the study will be more applicable to the Ayurveda health-care sector, where the doctors and the management have more role in the servicescape.

Health managers have to consider three stakeholders (customers, employees and firm) and the relationship between them. It is valued the PFR more, followed by the PER and EFR.

Proper implementation of the suggestions given by the study can improve overall service communications of the different service providers of Ayurveda with good interpersonal manner to achieve better relationships among the three mentioned parties.

The empirical evidence from the study is relevant and timely to the health-care service providers of the country to aid them in providing a better health-care service experience. The study adds value given the increasing trend of lifestyle diseases and subsequent demand in health-care services, especially in the Ayurveda sector.

While the sizable body of research focusses on various psychological effects of enterprise social media (ESM), research connecting the link between ESM and cyberslacking is still very sparse. Drawing inspiration from the social bonding theory, the authors have proposed a moderated mediation model to explain how ESM affordances reduce cyberslacking, mediated significantly by workplace social bonding when the perceived co-worker involvement is high.

Utilising a sample of 384 respondents, the study tested the model fit and hypothesised relationships with AMOS and PROCESS MACRO.

The findings show that workplace social bonding mediates the relationship between ESM affordances and cyberslacking. The results are also consistent with the moderated mediation model as the mediation is significant when the perceived co-worker involvement is high, and the mediation is insignificant when the moderator is low/moderate.

Considering the potential behavioural dynamics of ESM artefacts, the authors have introduced self-expression (via microblogging), recognition (from paralinguistic digital affordances) and network externality as ESM affordances. Alongside the existing measures to reduce employee deviance, the proposed model with the above-mentioned affordances can be investigated in detail by the future research community.

In light of the findings, the study demonstrates that ESM can be treated as a mechanism to keep cyberslacking at bay. The results offer significant implications for managers, who lookout for innovative and soft strategies to reduce cyberslacking in the workplace.

Instead of implementing strict policies to kerb cyberslacking, this study proposes an alternative and an interesting model by introducing ESM as a strategic tool in reducing cyberslacking. The paper argues that ESM, being a potential tool for employee engagement and bonding, may offset the employees' tendency to involve in cyberslacking.